Monthly Archives: June 2013

When US President Barack Obama swept into a packed university auditorium at a campus in Soweto township and addressed his youthful audience, he spoke of a “more prosperous, more confident” Africa. It was, he said, “a region on the move.” He then handed over the baton to young Africans, giving them their chance to probe him at the “town hall”-style gathering at the “Young African Leaders Initiative.” And they did not disappoint.

They may have been addressing the world’s most powerful leader, a man whose election as the US’s first black president inspired a wave of optimism across the continent, but the youngsters from South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya – the birthplace of Obama’s father – showed few signs of nerves and certainly no deference. Rather they displayed an articulate confidence – one that reflects the aspirations of a youthful continent that is increasingly enjoying a more prominent role on the global stage. Read more

In America, the cultural divide that defines politics is between red and blue states. In Turkey, the divide is between “black” and “white” Turks. This is not a reference to skin colour but to social attitudes and class. The “white” Turks tend to be secular, relatively well-off and more urban. The “black” Turks are pious Muslims and tend to be poorer and more provincial. Read more

The allegations against Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, an accountant in the Vatican’s internal accounting administration, are – albeit tangentially – the latest in a litany of scandals to affect the Vatican bank. Over the last three years, the 71-year-old Institute of Religious Works, as the bank is officially called, has been tainted by claims of money-laundering, corruption and incompetence.

The crisis began in September 2010 when it came under investigation by Italian authorities who had frozen €23m the bank was trying to transfer to accounts in Italy and Germany without releasing full details of the intended beneficiaries. The bank denied any wrongdoing. The funds were released but the investigation continues.

The Vatican responded with striking rapidity to the bank’s top two officials, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and Paolo Cipriani, being placed under investigation; Father Frederico Lombardi, the chief spokesman, even wrote to the FT defending the two men. Read more

Edward Snowden is fast becoming a hot potato nobody wants to handle. Russia does not want him – so he can’t leave the legally-grey area of the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on foot. He could fly away – that is Putin’s preferred solution and, indeed, it seems that he now has travel papers, after Ecuador granted him a “safe pass” for temporary travel, according to images of travel documents posted by Spanish language Univision late on Wednesday.

But Snowden’s flight path to the apparent safety of possible political asylum in another country, such as Venezuela (which has offered the possibility) or Ecuador (which has said it would consider it), is blocked by a problem. All commercial flights between Moscow and Quito or Caracas touch down in third countries with which the US has extradition agreements. And that includes Cuba. Read more

China’s cash crunch
It’s been a nervous few days on Chinese stock markets in the wake of last week’s cash crunch, which saw interbank lending rates in China rise to as high as 28 per cent. The Chinese central bank has made reassuring statements, but some commentators have talked about China being on the brink of a new financial crisis. Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor and editor of the FT beyondbrics blog, and Simon Rabinovitch, Shanghai correspondent, join Shawn Donnan to look at the state of the Chinese economy.

Mr Letta and Mr Berlusconi met on Tuesday to discuss the road ahead for the coalition. Top of the agenda was the government’s economic policy and, in particular, how to spare Italians of a rise in VAT, which is planned for July 1st but which Mr Berlusconi wanted to avoid at all cost. It is hard to imagine, however, that in their three-hour long meeting, Mr Letta and his predecessor did not discuss the consequences of the ruling in Milan.

Just a couple of days ago, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief, tweeted that he had met Julia Gillard and that the then Australian prime minister was an impressive woman. But, Campbell added, the Labor party needed to unite if it was to have a chance of victory in the upcoming Australian election.

The Australian Labor party, however, appears to have its own ideas on the matter. It responded to Gillard’s dramatic “back me or sack me” snap leadership election by ditching her and replacing her with her long time deadly rival, Kevin Rudd. The decision to switch leaders at this late stage testifies to the party’s desperation as it heads to what pundits expect will be a landslide defeat by the conservative opposition led by Tony Abbott.

While no one knows with certainty where Edward Snowden is heading after leaving Hong Kong on Sunday, Ecuador appears to be his most likely destination – a small country on the equator, as its name tells us, with fiery Rafael Correa as its outsize president. However, Correa is not the only larger-than-life politician that Ecuador has produced for the world. Indeed, for much of its history, Ecuador seems to have drawn its political inspiration from the gigantic volcano Chimborazo depicted on its coat of arms. Furthermore, like many of the titans who have dominated Ecuadorean politics, Correa has brought a rare stretch of political continuity to his country, although, as critics might argue of him but certainly his forebears, it has been at a cost. Read more

Jacob Frenkel, currently a chairman of JPMorgan International, will return as governor of the central bank of Israel, 13 years after leaving in 2000. He is taking over from the respected Stanley Fischer who will resign June 30, in an economic environment of slowing growth and rising property prices. Here is a handful of interesting reads (and a video) on his appointment and his past. Read more

The news that Edward Snowden has arrived in Moscow has a pleasantly nostalgic feeling to it. It sounds like the Cold War all over again. It is a shame for Snowden that Burgess, Maclean, Philby et al are all long gone, or he would have had a ready-made circle of friends. Then again, according to the FT, Snowden may only be passing through Moscow en route to Cuba and then to Venezuela. By the end of such a long journey, he could be completely Caracas. Read more

A student prepares a barbecue protest against the rise in bus fares (Getty)

Protests in Brazil are running in to their fifth night, a sign that Brazil’s previously polite manner of protesting has done little to bring about change.

After more than three centuries of colonial rule followed by intermittent dictatorships, confrontation isn’t the preferred style of protest for Brazilians. Samantha Pearson, the FT’s São Paulo correspondent, spoke to so-called BBQ activists - people who organise public barbecues to protest anything from police aggression to homophobia.

The idea of protesting via the medium of a grilled sausage may seem rather unusual, but food and social activism have a long history together. Read more

In the crystal balls of the European Union’s political and bureaucratic establishments looms a mortifying vision: voters in next year’s European parliament elections punish mainstream parties and vote en masse for their populist, radical right and anti-EU nemeses.

The humiliation of such a result would be compounded if, as has happened in every ballot for the EU assembly since direct elections began 34 years ago, turnout were to sink to a record low. Between 1979 and 2009 turnout fell from 62 to 43 per cent, a trend cited by the EU’s critics to reinforce the argument that the bloc’s shortcomings are not just economic but democratic in nature.

Eurosceptic, anti-establishment and ultra-right parties certainly have their tails up at the moment. To varying degrees, voters in many of the EU’s 27 countries are fed up with economic recession, mass unemployment, the erosion of the welfare state, political corruption and perceived high levels of immigration. A Gallup poll conducted last month in six member-states – Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK – showed that absolute or relative majorities in every country agreed that the EU was “going in the wrong direction”. Read more

The World

with Gideon Rachman

Gideon became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included spells as a foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Bangkok. He also edited The Economist’s business and Asia sections.

His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union and globalisation